Is this Really Necessary?

I may have already gone off on a tangent about this during the life of this blog, but I'm far too lazy to go back and find out.  So, if I have and you remember it, go ahead and skip reading this.
T and I were out running around this afternoon looking for dresser knobs (exciting, I know), I was flipping radio stations when I heard the beginning strains of Forever Young.  I love this song.  I've listened to it forever.
and so here is the  point of my rant.  I hate remixes and remakes.  The Alphaville song I thought I stumbled upon was a remix AND a remake.  I have no idea who did it or why, but I was not amused.  Not only had it been made into some sort of a dance tune, there was some sort of rapping in the middle of it.
I don't know why songs need to be remade.  I know people have songs they grew up listening to and think that just because they are an "artist" they can remake the song, make it their own and call it an homage or a tribute or whatever.  But how many remakes are actually better than the original?? In my books, one.
Ok, now I don't know every remake made and maybe a song I love is actually a remake I don't know about, but for right now I claim only one remake as being better.  Maybe it's because I don't care for the original artist...I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of the remake artist either, and why I like the song in general is beyond me, but I do.  It's Suspicious Minds by Dwight Yokam.  I know, SHOCK!  Everyone knows I hate country music, but for some reason beyond me I enjoy this song by him.  I don't like the Elvis original, but let Dwight put his twist on it and voila!
Some of the worst remakes I've heard:

• Life is a Highway by Rascal Flatts...ugh it makes me vomit a little in my mouth every time I hear it.  Tom Cochran's original is a million bazillion gajillion times better.  Don't fight me on this, it just is.
• American Woman by Lenny Kravitz...just listen to the Guess Who
• Come on Eileen by Save Ferris.  Why on earth would anyone need to remake this??
• Sweet Dreams by Marilyn Manson.  Really, you think you can top the Eurythmics?? I think not.
• American Pie by Madonna.
• I'm a Believer by Smash Mouth
• Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows

Plus a plethora of more, but those are just some that make me hurry and turn the channel!  I know I have left some good ones off my list and there are some remakes I like, not as much as the original though and like I said I probably love some songs not even knowing they are remakes.  I do love the New Order remake of Blue Monday, but it was a remake of their own song....so does that even count?

So what remakes do you hate/love?

Thoughts on a Tuesday Night

Here I sit wishing I had picture in picture in picture in picture. Or at a least a DVR capable of taping 3 shows while I watch a fourth. Man did we pick the wrong time to take the second DVR back.

So I can no longer watch the Canada-Germany qualification game. Thankfully Canada was up 4-1 when the DVR kicked on it's second taping, making me miss the third period. And I can always check the score online since NBC deems it necessary to relegate all hockey games of the Olympics to MSNBC or CNBC. Really NBC? Come on.

Speaking of Olympics, I also had to miss watching the women's skicross. Man is that sport insane. What is lacking in your life to make you choose this as your sport? I don't know, but I hope I never find out. To top it off Canada won the gold and I didn't get to see it!!

It's all worth it though since Lost is taping and we all know my obsession with Lost.

However, spending my time watching American Idol whilst waiting for Mark to maybe be home in time to watch Lost has brought some thoughts to my mind. Will you let me share them with you?

1) Leggings and all forms of the "pant" - I'm talking to you jeggings - need to die, and do it quickly and quietly.

2) Didn't we already have a rebirth of 80's fashion a few years ago? Were the contestants not told about this? Or are they hoping to somehow keep it alive? While I am a larger than life fan of 80's music, the fashion should never be reproduced.

3) Idol should NEVER be watched live.

4) Once Idol hits the voting stage, why are there judges? It's not like they make a difference anyway. Unless they give them that judges save card again this season.

5) Randy should really be the judge that gets replaced. I'm not sure his comments contain enough nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., to make up a proper, understandable sentence.

6) Kara reminds me of my friend and that's all I can think about when I see her.

7) Why people insist on singing songs by "Divas" and legends is beyond me. If you were as good as Whitney, Mariah, Madonna, Heart...would you be on Idol?

and lastly (and having absolutely nothing to do with Idol or Fox);

8) INXS is still my all-time favourite band. I don't listen to a lot of music these days and when I do, it's usually in the car for a short period of time. Lately I have come across a lot of INXS being played and it just reminds me of how good they were and how good they still are (minus lead singer issues). People might want to label them as an 80's band because that's when they had their big success, but take a listen. Those songs are timeless. It could be released today and would still be a hit. The two INXS concerts I saw while Michael Hutchence was alive were amazing. Anyway, if you're not too familiar with INXS, do yourself a favour and check out some of their songs, videos, concert footage...you won't be disappointed. For those of you who are familiar with them, do yourself a favour and revisit some songs. They just make you feel good!

Manners Anyone?

So I didn't watch the VMA's (does anyone watch them anymore?), but I did catch the news this morning. One of the morning news shows was going through the headlines and when they covered the VMA's, they mentioned how Taylor swift was interrupted by Kanye West while she was accepting her award. I guess Kanye wasn't too happy that Taylor had beat out Beyonce and he had to let the world know. Beyonce later won for best video and graciously asked Taylor to come up and give her acceptance speech without interruption this time. That was all wonderful, and friendly and all that. However the best part was when they cut back to the news guy, all he said was "What a jerk." Man, if I had been eating my cereal, I would have spewed milk everywhere I was laughing so hard!! LOVE IT!
Kanye seriously needs to just go away.

Moments of Genius

I'll never be a person with ideas that come to fulfillment and make a million dollars or save the world or anything like that, but every now and again I get these ideas that I just feel would be a waste if I didn't at least try to make them come to fruition.

My first idea that has yet to happen, and looks like it won't again this season, is for Wade Robson to choreograph a dance to Pink Elephants on Parade. Every time I see a dance by him, or even just a picture of him the song goes through my head. It's like his theme song, but he has no idea. So maybe a write in campaign??

My second idea that I have had since this last season of American Idol, and bangs around my head every time the song plays while I run, is that Adam Lambert NEEDS to do a version of The Darkness' I Believe In A Thing Called Love. For those of you who haven't heard the song, here. skip about a minute into it when the song starts. Now picture Adam Lambert singing. Doesn't it make total sense?? I'm thinking with all those Glambert fans out there we can make this one happen. I really wanted him to sing it on idol, it would have been awesome and completely suited his scream-y, stick my tongue out, thing he does when he hits the crazy notes.

Just my two cents. Let's make this happen!!

Music Makes the World Go Round

As I embarked on my (hopefully) daily exercise regime today, I noticed something. I'm not sure what this say about me, but I found it interesting.

Since I have been exercising in the basement, I no longer have a TV to keep me entertained, and I have found it difficult to read while I run (yes run, sometimes interspersed with walking, well walking interspersed with running actually), so I have confiscated the iPod from Mark to help the time pass as I slowly die in the basement. Yesterday after the "run" I realized that when I choose shuffle it becomes more like fast forward due to the fact that 80% of the music on the iPod is either Mark's or T's, so I decided to make a playlist of my tunes so I didn't have to fast forward so much. Well, it turns out that even with a playlist of just my songs, I still fast forward as much (musical ADD), but I did listen to 4 songs fully. Want to know what they were? Ice Ice Baby, Blue Monday '88, Come On Over, and (And That's The) Way It Is. During my cool down walk Dirrty came on, so of course I had to speed up for that, and when I was seconds from being finished I had to run again because I Believe In A Thing Called Love came on and who can cool down walk to that!? Not I sir.

I am glad that I am in the basement and not at the gym because I fully believe I look like a dork as I sweat, rocking out, dancewalking, to Kylie Minogue's Love At First Sight, with my wrist weights on (who knew wrists could sweat by the way??), but there's no mirror in my basement, so dancewalk I will!!

I've stropped with my little weekly check ins...they didn't seem to do too much for me other than serve as I reminder of what I hadn't done, but since I have started exercising at home, I think I am doing better. Last week I exercised four days, in addition to park play and walks. This week I have the goal of 5 days...2 down, 3 to go. Of course, then T and I leave for 2 weeks so I am sure it will all go to pot while we're gone, but we'll just focus on the present for the time being. Now if only I hadn't bought those chocolate covered pomegranate things from Costco. They're not as good as I had hoped they would be, but they're still good. Must refrain.

Adam Adam Bo Badam

Ok, so I just lost my Adam Lambert blog. Stupid keyboard.

Anyway, I have no idea what I wrote and of course it saved after the words magically disappeared.

The gist: loved Adam in Hollywood week, thought he would go far, probably finals. Each week he fades a little more for me, don't know why. His high notes make me die a little inside. He should pull off a rocking cover of The Darkness' "I Believe in a Thing Called Love". Would probably be better off to not win Idol so he won't have to sell his soul to 19 Entertainment. They won't like an album full of Ring of Fire covers. Commercial is better so Danny or Kris would most likely be the 19 folks choices to win.

Either way Adam will be Top 3. Think we should vote him off? Besides, think the Idol folks will provide costumes like this one for the Top 10 tour?? If so, maybe I'll buy me some tickets!!

So now I have lost 2 blogs on this topic. The first was the 2 AM laying in bed blog (which was awesome by the way - I even distinctly remember thinking to myself "this blog is awesome"), and my second attempt. They say the third times a charm...we will see.

So Jeff, disagree away, I know you are mush more of a music expert than I ever will be.

Trish, hope this helped on the whole "who is Adam Lambert" thing.

Everyone else, hope I didn't bore you to death.

Man, I even worked the word muzak into blog #2....stupid lost blogs.

False Idols

Sorry Mark...your blog needed to be pushed down a few!! :o)

Not that I have anything important to say - we just needed a change of scenery.

So. Idol. What's up?
I've kind of been on the Gokey train since the beginning. I won't say he is the world's best singer, but he is darn good and I like him. After last night though, I am thinking about de-boarding said train. It's no secret I am not a fan of country music, I don't hide it. It's no bigger secret that I don't like Rascal Flatts. It's no mammoth sized secret that I detest that song he sung last night. I will admit that as soon as I hard him say he was going to sing it, I cringed; however I am a benefit of the doubt kind of person, so I stuck around...for about 15 seconds of the song, just until the vomit started to creep into my throat and then I hit fast forward (thank you DVR). I'm sorry, I don't care how good of a singer you are (and sorry RF fans - which would be the entire group of my in-laws) that song is just wrong. I've hated it since the first time I heard it...which wound up being about 30546732098520547092580249824671851 times with radio overkill. Danny won't go home tonight, and I still like him, but Danny, no more RF, okay?
Megan - go home. That's all that needs to be said.
Adam - we like you, just dial it down a notch. A tad theatrical for Idol. I do think he might pull off an awesome Queen song though. I think he might be able to reach some of the notes that Freddie could hit. Think about it. Just don't do Bohemian Rhapsody. Also, I would have gone with some Vanilla Ice, Ice Ice Baby last night instead of That Funky Music.
Scott - sorry bud I think you're next on the go home path, right behind Megan.
Kris - Understatedly (is that a word?) good. I'm going to see some more life in you though.
Alison - you rock! Last week's Papa Was a Rolling Stone was awesome. This week, not as good. You better not go home. If you do, we might see the judges pull out the save card.
Lil - always good. I want to see her do an upbeat, newer tune. No Mary J Blige though because when she does, she will draw the inevitable critique of trying to imitate her and not make it Lil's. Even though the judges told her to sing Mary.
Matt - come on Matt! Last week was great. I didn't think this week was as bad as the judges thought, but it wasn't as good as last week. Matt needs to pimp it out. Maybe some Prince. That would be cool.
Anoop. Oh Anoop. I really, really like you. You've got to stop having awesome weeks followed by crappy weeks. Maybe sing some Boyz To Men or try some Maroon 5. I'd like to hear that.
Actually I'd like to hear Matt sing some Adam Levine too. Maybe Lil could do some justice to a Prince song as well. Prince night would be awesome.
On a more pressing note...why are there even judges? Their jobs are moot. Since it's the peoples vote, their opinions are solely blowing hot air. Paula's might be laced with Helium. They all say the same thing over and over dawg. There's no artistry, but you look really pretty tonight, even if it was reminiscent of a hotel lounge singer.
If you're going to have judges why not use them?? Let the people vote in the bottom 3, let them sing for survival and let the judges have the final say. If not, just put some cute kitties in those judges chairs and give them a ball of string to bat around. Makes about as much sense, right?
And what in the world is up with Paula's outfits? It looks like she's raided the 1987 closet of prom dress rejects. Generously, she decided to share her findings with Alison last night. Alison, don't go back into that closet.
Anyway, that's just my opinion.

A Heartfelt Plea

Please, please, PLEASE just go away.

Loves Lost

I rediscovered two lost loves this week (bet you thought this was another ode to LOST, didn't you??)
The first one is all thanks to Debbie, since she is the one that introduced me to them.
The second is King Apparatus. I discovered them back in high school, but it wasn't until last night at the gym that I remembered how much I liked them! Now, unless you're into a Canadian third wave ska music, you've probably never heard of them, but if you enjoy checking out new (old) bands, and types of music, give them a whirl.

Excuse Me, Did You Step on a Cat?

It's been a devilishly cold start to January here in tropical Minnesota (still warmer than the old hometown though), so it's nice to know that with the cold a little bit of warmth has arrived.Yes, Idol is back on the tube in our household. And while I am sure I will get frustrated with it, like always, I will watch it to the bitter end. It's like a train wreck, you just can't pull your eyes away from it, it sucks you in with no apologies and spits you out sometime in May, demanding your return for the next season.
There will be quality, hilarity, head shaking and Paula... could you really ask for anything more from Fox?

Hearing Aids

My new fave of the week... adjustable volume on kids toys.

Can we please give the person who finally decided that the whole world does not need to hear the musical insanity that goes hand in hand with kids toys, a prize? Seriously.
I love how T does not know that there are 2 levels to the music yet...we can still have some, limited, peace and quiet for awhile!

Calling All Exercisers

So the unthinkable has happened...I have gone back to the gym. I know, I know, it's only been two days, but it's been two days in a row! This news won't solve any economic crisis or create world peace, but small steps kids, small steps.

Now this is where I need your help. In making the decision to get back on the exercise track, I have discovered that when shuffle is chosen on the ipod most of the songs seem to belong to Mark and we all know Mark and I have nothing in common when it comes to music, except maybe Kelly Clarkson. So most of my work out time is spent fast forwarding through his tunes to try to find some of mine. While I love my tunes, not all of them lend themselves to keeping the motivation up, so I need your help to put together a good gym mix. What are your faves?

Just one thing to keep in mind... I have music ADD like no one else. Even on songs I love, if I can get through 2/3 of a song, it's either a fabulous song, or I haven't heard it in forever (like Young MC's Bust A Move) but usually I will fast forward to a new song or turn to a different channel on the radio.
So give me some rocking, beat blasting, mind focusing tunes!!